Happy New Year!

Some old NY postcards:

1960:

1960:

1968:

1970:

1971:

1975:

Happy New Year and wish you new labor feats!

En passant: answer to Larussophobe

It seems that I was unlucky enough to attract the attention of someone who runs a blog named Larussophobe (which does not appear in my blogroll). The author has read my recent post written after a visit to a local bookstore. The article at Larussophobe sums up to the following: a) I am a thief because I steal books; b) I see no connection between violation of intellectual property and the price of books; c) (quite unexpectedly) I am a stupid coward because I do not go and start a guerilla against Putin's tyranny.

I sometimes flatter myself with the thought that there's a share of my efforts in the fall of the USSR, because many years ago I participated in the anti-Soviet movement. It was only a tiny share, but still I cannot blame myself for doing nothing. I did not really oppose socialism per se, I didn't like the atmospere of lie, deception and concealment. Having read the article of Larussophobe, I have an impression that I am in the USSR. The author ascribes to me some statements of his own and attacks the strawman with the energy of a well-trained Soviet journalist. Unlike Soviet journalists, though, Larussophobe is anonymous.

We may have different ideas on what is theft, but even from the point of view of the most active proponents of intellectual property I am hardly a thief. The last books I have read are the works of Jack London, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Ivan Yefremov, Ivan Goncharov and other authors whose works are in public domain. There was also a book by Neil Gaiman whose novel I found too boring to pay for it. Theft? You may call it so, but I would not feel sympathy to poor writers. Let me quote the Egyptian Nights by Alexander Pushkin:

The calling of poet does not exist in our country. Our poets do not receive the patronage of men of quality: our poets are men of quality themselves, and if any Maecenas (devil take them all!) should fail to realize this, so much the worse for him. With us there are no tattered abbés whom a composer might pick up on a street corner to write a libretto. With us, poets do not walk door to door soliciting donations.

In a similar fashion, I write here for free. Unlike Larussophobe, I find it shameful to receive money for writing about history or politics. My salary may be small by Larussophobe's standards, but I earn it with my brain, to the last cent. And I don't make money on politics. I do write about politics, too, and I did criticize the ways of the Putin's Russia more than once. Larussophobe has even made some money by quoting me before. No, I would not call him a thief. But he is not an honorable man.

So, who is a stupid coward, me or the anonymous venal journalist who writes Soviet-style propaganda under nom de plume Larussophobe? Dismissed and forgotten.

PS: Oh, and by the way, I have finally bought A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People by Steven Ozment and Histoire de L'Italie by Katherine Brice :)

From bookstores

My family's gone to Moscow for some days and I feel a little bit lost and forgotten :). Probably, this is why I decided to take a walk to a nearby bookstore. It's been quite some time since I was there. Could be six or seven months, I think. The reason for this neglect was not that I quit reading. Quite the contrary. In April, I received a gift from my wife. It was an electronic book, called LBook. LBook is, actually, yet another brand name for the device generally known as Hanlin eReader. LBook is distributed by the Ukrainian company MUK. In some other countries the device is known under other names: Walkbook, papyre, BeBook, EZ Reader or just Hanlin eReader. To see how it works, check this video at YouTube. My LBook works even better, because it runs firmware, modified by some Russian enthusiasts, so, unlike the original Hanlin, it renders HTML, CHM and Epub in a quite readable way.

So, back to the story. I came to the bookstore, hoping to find some synoptic history of Germany and Italy. I did find a couple of books, Histoire de l'Italie by Katherine Brice and Kleine Deutshe Geschichte by Ulrich Herrmann, Andreas Gestrich, Ulf Dirlemeier et al. I had a look at the prices and put the books back to the shelf. $13-16 for a book is a little bit more that what I hoped to spend. Then I found another great book. It was La civilisation de L'europe des Lumieres by Pierre Chaunu. I checked the table of content, browsed through some pages and was ready to run for the cashdesk, when I saw the price. I used to buy the books from this series, like The Byzantine Civilization by Andre Guillou (I wrote about the book before) or the Civilization of Renaissance by Jean Delumeau or The Civilization of the Classic Islam by Dominique and Janine Sourdel and they cost me about $10 (250 rubles). But that last book costs 650 rubles! Even now that RUR/USD rate has plunged from 24 to 27 rubles, it's still 24 dollars, which is more than 3% of my monthly salary. So, I had to place it back ruefully.

No, I didn't just go away empty-handed. I bought a copy of The course of Russian history of 19th century by Alexander Kornilov. He was another historian from those last free thinkers who worked in the early 20th century, like Sergey Platonov or Dmitri Ilovaisky or Vasily Klyuchevsky. A great book. I'm afraid that we won't see a comparable work on 20th century for a very long time. Not from the Russian historians, sorry.

Now, some conclusions. Firstly, Russian business is Russian business, the prices go only one way, up and up. In the 1990s the sellers used to say: "Of course, the prices grow. You know, the dollar's rising", or "Of course, the prices grow. You know, the dollar's falling". No matter what, they said it with the most sincere faces and the expression of deepest conviction. I'm sure that now they will tell us: "Of course, the prices grow. You know, deflation..."

Secondly, once again I thank the Ukrainian sellers of that ebook device, my wife and so called "pirates", who scan books and make them available to those who can't catch up with the prices. Taking into account the digits I saw today, my LBook has already payed off its cost in six months.

Update: (2008-12-02 11:28:42) Follow-up: En passant: answer to Larussophobe

Lenin Jugend is 90

So, komsomol, aka VLKSM, is 90 years old. This time I will not write about history. I will leave this task to Sean's Russia Blog. Sean will do it better, he's not burdened by recollections. I have never been in komsomol. I can't say it was obligatory in mid-1980s, but not being a komsomol member was uncommon, not to say more. It usually brought an unpleasant surprise and suspicion. Like, if he's not in komsomol, he must have done something very bad. I didn't. On the contrary, I was a "political observer" in school. Worse than that, I was one of the best ones (I think I mentioned it before). To a certain degree, I was a problem for the school's administration. They pressed me to join VLKSM, but I kept kicking over the traces. Once, they lured me to a komsomol meeting. "It's an open meeting, and we've got something we want to discuss", they said. Okay. So, I came there and fifteen minutes I found out with surprise that they are talking about admitting me! Frantically, I tried to think something up to avoid it. And then a lucky star shone on me. A girl decided to ask me: "Tell us, why do you want to join the komsomol?" "Do I?" "Ah, so, he doesn't want to be with us, so let him go!" everybody shouted.

That was the end of my career in komsomol. Sometimes I think that that girl was too smart to make this mistake. I think she knew very well what I thought about komsomol and simply gave me a chance. If so, I thank her.

Some years later, when I graduated from school, I learned that a whole gang of the school's komsomol leaders were detained for robbing freight trains. I have no idea what happened to them, but I thought there was some logic in it.

On the other hand, my beloved wife was also a komsomol leader in her school. And I believe she was a good leader, fair and honest.

In the meanwhile, Lenin Jugend enjoy themselves: Russians remember Soviet youth organization on anniversary. And a blogging lady, one of the higher officials of modern komsomol, wrote about the convention:

On this day, all they gather in one hall: governors and ministers, former governors and former ministers, oligarchs and pensioners, functionaries and managers, bankers and scientists, cosmonauts and engineers, left and right, red, white and blue polka dotted, and all they extol the organization that made them real people.

...

There's something mystical when bankers and oligarchs, highest officials and people of power come to the stage and with fiery eyes, in a voice trembling from tears, talk about the battles for the Soviet power, about feats of labor, about the tents on the construction site of the Bratsk power station... Today all they are the veterans of komsomol.

I assume, some of those gonzels from my school might shed their tears on this feast, too. They would feel at home.

Blizzards

Beg your pardon for this little digression. The weather's getting really nice here. I always loved winters and it's been a long time since I saw a good blizzard. It started two days ago and still continues. Here are some photos:

Frivolous...

I found this joke at a Russian history forum and thought I have to share it :)

November 7, the anniversary of the October Revolution. The military parade at the Red Square in Moscow. Napoleon and Murat are among the invited VIPs: ambassadors, chairmen of the communist parties and so on. Napoleon reads "Pravda" newspaper and Murat observes the parade in excitement.

Murat: "Your Excellence, look at these brave soldiers! If we had a battallion of such soldiers, we could have won the battle of Waterloo!" Napoleon keeps reading Pravda. The Kantermirov tank division enters the Red Square.

Murat: "Your Excellence, look at these tanks! If we had one of them, we could have won the battle of Waterloo!" Napoleon keeps reading Pravda. The mobile tactical missiles slowly enter the scene.

Murat: "Your Excellence, look at these missiles! If we had just one of them, we could have won the battle of Waterloo!"

Napoleon raises his eyes, watches Murat sadly and finally utters: "Mon cher, if we had a newspaper like Pravda, the world would have never known that we had lost at Waterloo..."